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“I do. He was so handsome in a pilot’s uniform.”
“Well, Andy Eldridge could have been a script consultant.”
Genevieve looked bewildered. “Andy. Your Andy?”
“He was a terrible husband, Mom.”
“What happened? What did he do?” Then Genevieve’s eyes flashed with sudden, fierce anger. “Did he hurt you? The kids?”
Willow should have realized her mother’s thoughts would go to abuse first. Last May, the family discovered that her sister, Brooke, had been in a physically abusive marriage. “He never hit me. Never hit the kids. No, Andy took his meanness in an entirely different direction.”
“Mean,” Genevieve murmured. “That’s the last word I would have used to describe Andy Eldridge.”
“If I start at the beginning, this might make better sense, though I’m not exactly sure where the beginning was. Maybe by our third date. That’s when I decided that Andy was the perfect guy for me.”
“I remember.”
Willow shrugged. “He was charming and handsome and funny and smart. He always knew exactly what to say to make me feel special. I fell head over heels in love with him.”
Genevieve closed her eyes, wincing as if pained. She cleared her throat. “That was such a hard time for us. I didn’t handle it well at all. You fell for him so fast and so hard. It scared me. You threw away your dreams and found new ones so fast.”
“I know. You were right to be scared.” Willow sighed heavily and admitted, “Your instincts were right all along, Mom.”
“Explain.”
Willow stabbed at her dessert with her spoon. “Oh, in the beginning, everything was perfect. He was perfect because perfect was all that he let me see. In hindsight, he was working on me even back then. Changing me. And yes, changing my dreams. He was subtle about it, planting little thoughts and ideas that acted like little wedges between me and you and me and my siblings. I didn’t see, did you?”
“You and I created our own great big wedge, Willow,” Genevieve pointed out. “I told you I didn’t like Andy.”
“Yes, but that was right at the beginning and then you changed your mind and tried to make things better. The thing is, Mom, he never said anything bad about you.”
Genevieve lifted her gaze from her dessert to meet Willow’s. Willow saw that her words had shocked her mother. “Seriously?” Genevieve asked.
Willow nodded. “He never said anything, but he had this way of asking questions that slithered around in my mind, creating doubt. For example, he’d say, ‘Is it healthy for you to be so close to your mother?’ When I look back on our wedding, oh, Mom, I feel so terrible. So ashamed.”
Now a wary note entered her mother’s eyes. “Why?”
“I cut you out. Here you were, gifting Andy and me with the wedding of my dreams, and there toward the end, I turned into Bridezilla. I’m so sorry. I was selfish. Unfortunately, I was listening to Andy, who was whispering in my ear, ‘It’s your special day. You are the only one who matters.’”
Genevieve stood and began picking up the dishes, not meeting Willow’s eyes. Her voice was a little tight as she asked, “What about the mother-daughter spa weekend?”
“Mom, I’ll deal with the dishes.” Willow frowned. “What mother-daughter spa weekend?”
Her mother wrinkled her nose and carried the dishes to the sink. “No, I need something to do with my hands. Andy told me he was treating us to a mother-daughter spa getaway at the Four Seasons. But he called and canceled at the last minute because you were so angry at me over the brand of vodka I ordered for the signature cocktails.”
Willow’s voice went deadly quiet. “That sonofabitch. Mom, I didn’t care about the vodka. He cared about the vodka. And there was never any mother-daughter spa day scheduled that I know about.”
“I see.” Her mother began loading the dishwasher, her motions getting a little jerkier, the actions a little louder with every dish she placed. Willow had loaded the dishwasher as she cooked, so her mother didn’t have much cleanup to do.
“Okay then,” Willow continued. “Moving on. Andy took the job in Nashville without discussing it with me first.”
Standing at the sink, her hands sunk in soapy water, Genevieve muttered, “This just gets better and better.”
Willow stared down at her chocolate-filled spoon, and her stomach took a sick little roll. She set down the utensil, rose, and carried her dessert plate to her mother. “I know. Lookingback on it, I can’t believe I went along. He convinced me I was wrong for not being thrilled about this big opportunity he had been offered. I convinced myself that I wanted to live in Nashville, that moving away from our extended families would make us stronger as a couple.”
“Why?”
“He said we needed to cut the apron strings, to depend on each other instead of our families.”
